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FULL RECOMMENDATION
PARTIES : TUSLA CHILD & FAMILY AGENCY DIVISION :
SUBJECT: 1. Regional Managers. 2. This issue only affects four Workers and does not have wider implication for other Workers. The Employer has confirmed and acknowledged that the cost of giving pay parity to the Workers can be absorbed within its existing budget.
2. The Employer’s parent Department referred the matter to the Department of Expenditure and Reform. It was their view that the request is prohibited under the current and previous National Pay Agreements as it is deemed cost increasing.
The Child and Family Agency (also known as T�SLA) (‘the Employer’) was established in 2014. Some four thousand staff that had been employed in other state agencies transferred in or around that time to the new entity. Those staff were drawn principally from the Children and Family Services of the Health Service Executive, the National Educational Welfare Board (now TESS) and the Family Support Agency. The within dispute concerns four Regional Managers (‘the Workers’) who transferred to the Employer from the National Educational Welfare Board/TESS on their existing salaries and associated terms and conditions of employment. The Workers were, and continue to be, remunerated on the Assistant Principal salary scale. A joint working group was established with IMPACT (now F�RSA) trade union after the transfer to identify appropriate grade comparators for the Workers. The outcome of the exercise resulted in agreement in 2018 to align the Workers with the General Manager grade in T�SLA. It was also agreed that the number of Regional Manager posts be increased to five (from four) and the reporting line would be to the National Manager whereas the Workers had previously reported directly to Director of the TESS Service. The new structure was approved by the parent Department. The additional Regional Manager post was advertised and filled in October 2018 and is remunerated in accordance with General Manager scale. The Workers transitioned to the new reporting relationship but did so on condition that the Employer would seek approval from the parent Department to transfer them to the higher General Manager pay scale. The Union submits that the role, responsibilities and functions of the fifth Regional Manager (appointed on the General Manager scale) are identical to those of the four Workers who are the subject of this dispute. The Union is seeking to have the Workers assimilated to the General Manager pay scale with retrospective payment of the difference in salary back to October 2018. The Employer submits that it has presented a business case in support of the Union’s claim to its parent Department. In its submission, the Employer emphasises that it supports the regrading claim and is confident that it can meet the additional associated costs from within its own budgetary resources. However, the parent Department is obliged to seek prior approval for such a regrading exercise from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. That Department has not granted the necessary approval as it deems the claim to be cost-increasing and contrary to current and previous national pay agreements. Recommendation It is clear to the Court that the Union and the Employer are ad idem in relation to the Workers’ claim to be placed on the General Manager pay scale. It follows that there is no trade dispute within the meaning of the Industrial Relations Acts between the Parties to this referral. The existence of a trade dispute between the Parties named in referral to the Court is a sine qua non for the engagement of the Court’s jurisdiction. The Court, accordingly, has no option but to decline to make a Recommendation in the circumstances of this referral.
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